ABOUT THIS ALBUM

Album Notes

MEET THE BAND...

Morgan Grace - guitar and vocals
I was raised in a small town in Oregon by two crazy alcoholics who one day took a break from beating the crap out of each other just long enough to buy me a nylon string acoustic guitar. I was 12. When I was 18 I moved to Portland Oregon where I met a female drummer. We played my twisted songs together mostly at parties until we turned 21 and started playing bars. We recorded a handful of songs for a local compilation but parted ways in '99. I continued to play as a solo act and released my first album The Rules of Dating in 2003. I hear I have a knack for making people exclaim "WHAT did she just say?" I love to perform both solo acoustic and with my band and I couldn't be happier with my current line up.

Sam Henry - drums
I started playing the drums when I was 7 and met Buddy Rich (my main inspiration) when I was 10. I love jazz and played in the stage band in high school and won a few awards at the Reno Jazz Festival...lets just say sometime in the 70's. At 15 I was playing professionally with lots of country and western bands, R & B bands, and you name it. I met Greg Sage when I was just barely out of high school and we formed the Wipers with Dave Koupal in the late 70's. We recorded a couple of EP's and the album "Is This Real?" but I quit in 1980 or so. I played with Fred and Toody Cole for awhile in a pre- Dead Moon band called The Rats and recorded one album called "Intermittent Signals" before joining Chris Newman and Napalm Beach in 1981. Napalm toured all over Europe, recorded too many records to count on my fingers, and morphed into several incarnations (Snowbud and the Flower People, Divining Rods) all lead by Chris. After 23 years with Napalm lets just say I've "moved on". The first time I heard Morgan her music knocked me right off my chair.

Jeff Williams - bass
I was born in Portland, OR in 1961 and moved around from LA to Seattle to Tripoli Libya but returned to Portland in 1973. I played guitar in a lot of early Portland punk bands in the late 70's and early 80's like the Ziplocs with Chuck Aravac who later joined Sado Nation, the Preps with Todd Souvignier, the Posers with Sam Henry and Otis P Otis, and the Hipsters with Tony Branze. I graduated from college with a degree in electrical engineering in late 1985 and have been taking a break from rock and roll to work in the electronics field. I saw Morgan and Sam performing at an outdoor concert last summer and jumped at the chance to join their group.

A great compliment to her earlier release, this album feature a complete band. The backup band is fine, but the real attraction her is Ms. Grace herself, make no mistake. Powerful vocals alluding to taboo subjects and witticisms will keep you busy hitting the repeat button. The latter part of the album drags a slight bit, but the first 6 or 7 songs MORE than earn a 5 in my book...

Like all great musical movements, and more specifically groups of classic quality, they seem to come from nowhere. Morgan Grace is no exception, WITH the exception of the pedigree of the drummer (the obviously very talented Sam Henry, who handled percussion in not one but two bands of great cult status - the Wipers and Napalm Beach).
*****
However, this particular outing defies categorization in any particular sub-form of the genre aside to say that, yes, most of it is "rock" and yet Morgan Grace's acoustic
talents are clearly shown in some of the more remarkable songs on her sophomore outing, "The Sound of Something Breaking". Whereas the first album "Rules of Dating" was
charming and more pop-oriented if uneven in its production, this album unleashes a torrent of apocalyptic sounds in an audioscape that is both thrilling and frightening to behold. It has something to please everyone. I'll save my song-by-song review for later, but after hearing this triumph of an album, one can only guess where all of this will lead. Already their live shows are greatly anticipated events in Portland and surrounding areas. The pure musical excellency, fantastic delivery, excellent production courtesy of Howard Gee (and Morgan and Sam!) foretell great things in their future. One gets the sense that Morgan Grace and Co. are on the very cusp of a steep upward curve, but even so have left lesser ensembles far, far behind. What is next is almost unimaginable. BRAVO Morgan Grace!!!!!

I can't say enough about the new record, The Sound Of Something Breaking, IT F__N` ROCKS! The interlude in Makes Me Happy is cool as hell, the vulnerability of Final Words is quite moving, and Your Name, takes you somewhere I think we've all been. I could go on and list all the tracks...This CD really moves, and I guarantee that when listening to it YOU WILL TOO! Sweet songs with sharp lyrics....A brilliant accomplishment.

If you don’t know who Morgan Grace is now, you soon will. The Sound of Something Breaking is to Morgan Grace what Bleach was to Nirvana. Buy the CD and by the fifth time you’ve listened to it start to finish, you’ll know what I’m talking about. The smoothness of the electric guitar, the roominess of the mix, and the lush mellow vocals in Track One will make you curious. By the time you get to the guitar solo in Track Two, you really start to pay attention. When you hit Track Three you will mutter to yourself (and I quote) ‘Sh_t this is f_cking good’. The rest of the album is literally history in the making. ‘Makes me Happy’ is a phenomenal work of art. ‘Final Words’ seeps through your skin and tattoos itself in your mind for the next 36 hours, quietly altering your perspective all through the next day. ‘Do Do Do Do’ will turn you into a blathering idiot to your friends and they won’t get you to shut up until they buy the CD themselves. Portland in 2005 is a melting pot of great music. In two year’s time – mark my words - Morgan Grace will be the one to build the national wave that everyone is riding.